The United States has been criticized for its lack of public transportation, and ability to move around urban centers. This is largely in part due to the automobile development being one of the primary sources for America’s economic and industrial strength. With American automobile manufacturers pumping out new makes and models, the automobile has become a fashion accessory to the average American household. Many times we are not talking about one car per household, rather one car per person, and now we can start to understand why America is having such congestion problems. The truth is though that America is fixated on the car. Even if robust public transportation systems were in play, my guess is that many Americans would still opt to travel by their beloved automobile.

Sprawl has been a key contributor towards the automobile lifestyle. The American model of suburbia has been fully utilized, and has allowed our cities to reach out hundreds of miles from their epicenter. America has the land, which allows us to live in low-density situations. This creates the “American Dream” lifestyle with the two-story house outside of the city surrounded by a white picket fence, and a yard for the kids to play in. This dream has been adopted by millions of Americans, and has contributed to this object sprawl across America. The ability to connect these different objects becomes daunting. Even worse are sprawled cities like Los Angeles with higher populations being scattered over a large area, allowing no hierarchy across the landscape. In these conditions public transportation becomes extremely difficult to make efficient connections to move people amongst the fabric. Public transportation becomes fully utilized when its convenience is greater than the car. This is seen in cities like Boston, and New York where street congestion and parking conditions are nearly impossible. Public transportation also becomes a viable business model in environments with higher density. Higher density equals more people in given areas, which provides quicker turn over rates and shorter distances. Low sprawl environments don’t have enough people per given area allowing for public transportation to be inefficient.

Another reason for this automobile craze is the luxury factor. In America the auto industry is celebrated similar to high fashion. Promoting the idea that the car is a reflection of you, and a tool for measuring success. With so many makes and models, which fall into different value systems such as cost, performance, versatility, and aesthetics, the car has advanced from people mover to a work of art and design. America has literally put the car up on a pedestal, and has shown it not only to the United States as the best way to move, but has also sold this model to the world. The automobile in America has become the most respectable way to not only travel, but to travel in style and “convenience” to the individual.

The success of the automobile also comes from the means of obtaining one. In America having your very own car is as simple as 199 down, 199 a month for 48 months, and a tagged on 1.9 % interest rate. Although this terminology doesn’t sound simple, this strategy of borrowing has made the car easily obtainable. It is difficult for many families to put down $30,000 for a car, but when you spread that cost out over 48 months, the car itself becomes more realistic. The truth is that with our given lack of public transportation, it is nearly impossible to live outside of urban density without a car. This cause and effect relationship is based on the demand for cars, and the ability to get financing for them; the two systems feed off of each other. In retrospect Oprah’s motto; “EVERYBODY GETS A CAR” is almost the reality.

It is through these various factors that the “land of the automobile” has been born, and as a country we have strived and became comfortable with the presence of our companions. Houses have been fitted with a two or three car garage, and a long driveway connecting our objects to our overbuilt/ under built roadway infrastructure. City streets are split down the middle allowing people to only cross at intersections. As a country we have accepted to travel 10 miles in either 10 minutes, or 2 hours. Our dependence on the automobile has started to become a burden on our country. The dependence on oil in order to keep The United States functioning has created excruciating tension that makes us enslaved to oil prices. We have to rely on other countries for importing oil, for we cannot even come close to producing as much as we consume. The automobile has given Americans the opportunity to sprawl, and has created new terminology such as rush hour, which focuses on the absurd number of people traveling, within certain time constraints of the day, into and out of the downtown areas. Even with all of these problems, America still willingly depends on the automobile as their primary source of transportation, and many see no other model to be fit.

After visiting 798 creative industry in Beijing, there was one sculpture that caught my eye. The sculpture was a model of an old school Lamborghini, Finally art that speaks my language. Instead of the model being covered in Lambo yellow, it was patterned with a multitude of bright colors. As I stepped closer I realized that it was not actually paint, rather it was plastered in Lottery Tickets.

The sculpture, by “Ghost of A Dream”, is a reflection of wealth promised by the lottery. Each object in the exhibit represents a familiar, western symbol of wealth that people can easily associate with. Creating these objects out of scratched lottery tickets represents individual’s monetary hopes being followed by their frustrating loss. This philosophy is backed by Western’s obsession with the pursuit of happiness through materialistic goods. Displaying this piece in China, a country that is fascinated with western way of life, reflects a universal frenzy for consumption.

The drive for consumption is created by the free market, and the ideas of creating a government driven by corporations and consumerism. This model created industrial revolutions, which sky rocketed America’s economy, power, and influence through modernization and development. As a country, America started to understand that it cannot consume forever, and currently the economy is faltering due to over consumption and free market faults.

China currently is going through a very similar growth model that America has previously been through. The political model of communism is starting to take on more of a free market approach in China, and the “American Dream” model is starting to become much more prevalent in the east. This rapid development and modernization in China has already started to create a free market, in which many western values are being used as precedent. In order for China to grow as a country they are going to also have to consume.

What is starting to create tension with the idea of consumption is that resources are already starting to dwindle. Wars have been fought over oil control, and the amount of pollution that has been pumped into the environment is starting to make areas inhospitable. When we start to compare numbers, America is a country of 310 million people compared to China’s roughly 1.4 billion people, the idea of scale starts to come into play. America is starting to realize that the “American Dream” model is not necessarily a practical mindset for a world where resources are limited. America’s dependence on the car has started to create congestion and a market dependent on the price of oil. Oil is only one of numerous resources that are starting to vanish, and in the future different resources will become higher in demand.

We can only predict the impact of western values possessed by the east, and in many ways we can only hope that China learns from America’s faults as opposed to mimicking them. With the argument that America had its chance to develop, and now it is China’s turn, we already see the immaturity of the situation, and this is the part that starts to get serious. China’s search for quantitative and economic power has really been the driver for this western, free market ideology. As cities in China start to get covered in smog, this is not necessarily viewed as a problem rather as progress. Factories begin to pump out more and more products, and the instant result is that China becomes more powerful and modernized. This mentality ultimately creates the effect of 1.4 billion people searching for their yellow Lamborghini, and we can only hope they will be hybrid.

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